What Does hemistich Mean
It is called hemistiquio to half of a verse . The term, which derives from the Latin hemistichĭum (in turn originated from the Greek hēmistíchion ), is usually used to refer to each fragment of a verse that is separated from the others by a caesura .
This means that, beyond the allusion to a "half" (indicated by the Royal Spanish Academy in its dictionary ), the hemistiques are not always two equal parts in which a verse is fragmented. It is possible that these parts are not the same, or that a verse has three or more hemistichs.
This concept is framed in the field of metrics , which is defined as the sum of all formal and systematic regularities that serve to characterize rhythmic prose and verse poetry. From a metric point of view, the study of writing is divided into three important parts: the poem, the stanza, and the verse.
If we focus specifically on the Spanish metric, we have a verse that is made up of an invariable number of syllables and a certain distribution of accents , with an optional rhyme. In our language you can also find works with quantitative metrics, that is, from the one that arises when forming verses by concatenating syllables, which in other languages can have two or more durations; Greco-Latin is a clear example of a quantitative metric, since it was created starting from the repetition of some sequences of long and short syllables, the so - called feet .
In meter , hemistichs are taken as complete verses . In the case of the Castilian metric, the verses of more than nine syllables have hemistichs. Therefore it can be affirmed that an Alexandrian verse , which is made up of fourteen metric syllables, is made up of two hemistichs, each of seven syllables.
Similarly, a twelve-syllable verse that has a total of twelve syllables is formed with two six-syllable hemistichs. The hemistichs of the Alexandrian verbs and of the twelve-syllable verses are separated by the aforementioned caesuras, which are pauses or cuts .
Although we can define the word caesura in a simple sentence, it is one of the fundamental concepts of poetry . Without this pause or this space within each verse, oral reading and understanding of the works would be affected. From an academic point of view, in verses containing more than eleven syllables we cannot fail to include at least one caesura. In any case, we must not forget that poetry arose before all these technical concepts, which serve to understand it and, depending on each author, take it to new horizons but are not an infallible recipe for creating art.
Let's take the example of the poem “La carrera de Al-hamar” by the Spanish writer José Zorrilla , born in 1817 and died in 1893 . In this composition the following verse appears:
"Fearful, feigning lost visions"
It is a twelve-syllable verse since it has twelve syllables: me-dro-sas fin-gien-do visio-nes per-di-das . On the other hand, this verse shows a caesura that divides it in two: fearful, pretending / / lost visions . Therefore, the verse "Medrosa, pretending lost visions" has two hemistiquios: "Medrosa, pretending" and "lost visions" .
On the other hand, we have the concept of heterostychium , which also belongs to the field of metrics and is defined as each uneven part into which a verse of major art is divided once the caesura comes into play. For example, if we take a decasyllable verse that is divided into a six-syllable part and a four-syllable part, we can say that each of them is a heterostychium. The difference between this and hemistich is very simple: it would be two hemistichs if both parts had the same number of syllables.